Prof David Makinson LAK3.06

This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, MSc in Economics and Philosophy, MSc in Philosophy of Science and MSc in Philosophy of the Social Sciences. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Introductory level logic.

The aim of the course is to render students of philosophy familiar with the elements of naive set theory, classical logic, and modal logic. From set theory, the course covers both ‘working’ set theory as a tool for use in formal reasoning, and ‘conceptual’ set theory of philosophical interest in itself particularly in its treatment of infinite sets, cardinals and ordinals. From classical logic, the course deals with propositional and first-order inference from both semantic and axiomatic viewpoints. The material on modal logic presents the main modal propositional systems and their analysis using relational models. Throughout, a balance is sought between formal proof and intuition, as also between technical competence and conceptual reflection.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT. 15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the LT.

Students are required to write two 1,500 word essays during the year on a topic from a list or proposed by the student with approval of the instructor, and are to hand in two or three problem solutions each term.

Textbooks: Makinson, David 2012 Sets, Logic and Maths for Computing, 2nd edition. Springer; Cameron, Peter 1999 Sets, Logic and Categories. Springer; Sider, Theodore 2010 Logic for Philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Complementary reading: Crossley, John 1972 What is Mathematical Logic? Dover reprint 1991; Goble, Lou (ed) 2001 The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic, Blackwell; Halmos, Paul 1960 Naive Set Theory, Springer reprint 2011; Smith, Peter 2014, Gödel without (too many) tears. Internet access: http://www.logicmatters.net/igt/godel-without-tears/; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, internet access: http://plato.stanford.edu/.

Remark: The precise chapters and sections of the textbooks and complementary titles that are needed will be indicated in the weekly topic list, which will be posted on Moodle.

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the main exam period.